The Scarecrow

“He’s killed all of the cameras,” Rachel said. “What is-”

“Wait. There!”

I pointed to one camera angle surrounded by several black squares. Rachel manipulated the touch pad and brought the image up to full screen.

The camera view captured a passageway between two rows of server towers in the farm. Lying facedown on the floor were two bodies, their wrists cuffed behind their backs and their ankles bound with cable ties.

Rachel grabbed the stem microphone attached to the desk, depressed the button and almost shrieked into it.

“George! Sarah! Can you hear me?”

At the sound of Rachel’s voice the figures on the screen stirred and the male raised his head. It looked like there was blood on his white shirt.

“Rachel?” he said, his voice sounding weak over an overhead speaker. “I can hear you.”

“Where is he? Where’s Carver, George?”

“I don’t know. He was just here. He just brought us in here.”

“What happened?”

“After you left he went into his office. He was in there for a little bit and when he came out, he got the drop on us. He grabbed my gun out of my briefcase. He herded us in here and put us on the floor. I tried to talk to him but he wouldn’t talk.”

“Sarah, where’s your weapon?”

“He got that, too,” Mowry called out. “I’m sorry, Rachel. We didn’t see it coming.”

“Not your fault. It’s mine. We’re going to get you out of there.”

Rachel released the microphone and quickly came around the workstation, bringing her weapon with her. She went to the biometric reader and put her hand on the scanner.

“He could be in there, waiting,” I warned.

“I know, but what am I going to do, leave them lying in there?”

The device completed the scan and she grabbed the handle to slide the door open. It didn’t move. Her hand scan had been rejected.

Rachel looked back at the scanner.

“That makes no sense. My profile was put in yesterday.”

She put her hand on the scanner and began the procedure again.

“Who put it in?” I asked.

She looked back at me and didn’t need to answer for me to know it had been Carver.

“Who else can open that door?” I asked.

“Nobody who’s on this side. It was me, Mowry and Torres.”

“What about employees here?”

She stepped away from the scanner and tried the door again. It didn’t budge.

“They’re on a skeleton staff upstairs and there’s nobody with authorization for the farm. We’re screwed! We can’t get-”

“Rachel!”

I pointed at the screen. Carver had suddenly stepped into the view of the one working camera in the server room. He stood in front of the two agents on the floor, hands in the pockets of his lab coat, and looking directly up at the camera.

Rachel quickly came around to see the screen.

“What’s he doing?” she asked.

I didn’t need to answer because it became clear that Carver was pulling a box of cigarettes and a throwaway lighter from his pockets. In one of those moments when the mind delivers useless information I realized they were probably the cigarettes missing from Freddy Stone’s/Marc Courier’s box of belongings. As we watched, Carver calmly drew a cigarette from the box and put it in his mouth.

Rachel quickly pulled over the microphone.

“Wesley? What’s going on?”

Carver was raising the lighter to the end of the cigarette but stopped when he heard the question. He looked back up at the camera.

“You can dispense with the niceties, Agent Walling. We’re at the end of the dance now.”

“What are you doing?” she said more forcefully.

“You know what I’m doing,” Carver said. “I’m ending it. I’d rather not spend the rest of my days chased like an animal and then put in a cage. Being put on display, trotted out for interviews with bureau shrinks and profilers hoping to learn all the dark secrets in the universe. I think I would find that to be a fate worse than death, Agent Walling.”

He raised the lighter again.

“Don’t, Wesley! At least let Agents Mowry and Torres go. They did nothing to hurt you.”

“That’s not the point, is it? The world hurt me, Rachel, and that’s enough. I’m sure you’ve studied the psychology before.”

Rachel took her hand off the transmit button and quickly turned to me.

“Get on the computer. Shut down the VESDA system.”

“No, you do it! I don’t know the first thing about-”

“Is Jack there with you?” Carver asked.

I hand-signaled Rachel to trade places with me. I moved to the microphone while she dropped into a seat and went to work on the computer. I depressed the button and spoke to the man who murdered Angela Cook.

“I’m here, Carver. This is not how this should end.”

“No, Jack, it’s the only end. You have slain another giant. You’re the hero of the hour.”

“No, not yet. I want to tell your story… Wesley. Let me explain it to the world.”

On the screen, Carver shook his head.

“Some things can’t be explained. Some stories are too dark to be told.”

He flicked the lighter and the flame came up. He started to light the cigarette.

“Carver, no! Those are innocent people in there!”